Convivial conservation

IGDC member Judith Krauss discusses the new book Convivial conservation: From principles to practice, co-edited with Kate Massarella, Wilhelm Kiwango & Rob Fletcher.

What should the future of biodiversity conservation look like? Against a backdrop of rapid biodiversity loss, alternative visions offer conflicting perspectives on how to preserve the diversity of life on which human survival depends.

One vision, known as ‘30×30’ , emphasises the need for 30% of land to be reserved for nature by 2030, proposing to significantly expand existing land areas under protection¹. Others point out that protected areas in the past and present in some regions have entailed injustice and physical or economic displacement². Some highlight colonial and racist roots in dominant ideas of conservation, calling instead for decolonising conservation.

In response to the critiques of protected area expansion, and in the face of economic, social, and environmental polycrisis, an alternative approach to conservation has been proposed: convivial conservation. Convivial conservation proposes a vision, a politics and a set of governance principles for the future of conservation that responds to manifold pressures of our time. It proposes a post-capitalist approach which promotes radical equity, structural transformation and environmental justice in order to create a more equal and more sustainable world.

It features 15 chapters by authors from diverse disciplines, backgrounds and research foci, who critically engage with the convivial conservation proposal and offer crucial reflections on its strengths and possibilities. It both outlines the principles of convivial conservation and highlights how they land in the practice of different species and contexts, aiming towards a transformative vision for the future of conservation.

Three key themes recur throughout the authors’ contributions. The first is justice, exploring how justice – understood as epistemic, participatory/multi-species justice, and distributive justice, building on Schlosberg’s (2004) three pillars of environmental justice: recognition, participation, distribution – can be better conceptualised in convivial conservation in order to be transformative. A second focus is unpacking the concept and implementation of human-wildlife coexistence. The third theme is identifying and developing methodologies for investigating and facilitating transformative change in conservation research and practice, drawing on diverse ontologies and more-than-human thinking and approaches. Fundamentally, the book argues that convivial conservation has the potential to offer an alternative vision for the future of conservation in the Anthropocene, but only if it continues to evolve through critical engagement with these different themes and a plurality of diverse perspectives.

The first part consists of an introduction by the co-editors, which unpacks these three key themes, along with ‘Towards convivial conservation’ by Bram Büscher and Rob Fletcher, which outlines the principles of the convivial conservation vision. The second part focuses on pluralising and decolonising conservation and its first contribution by Mathew Bukhi Mabele, Judith Krauss, and Wilhelm Kiwango explores the potential for ‘going back to the roots’ through Ubuntu and just conservation in Southern Africa. Christine Ampumuza then explores the lessons for convivial conservation offered by Batwa-gorilla relations in Bwindi Forest in Uganda. Judith Krauss then analyses Ivan Illich’s conviviality and convivial conservation through a decolonising lens, before Paolo Bocci completes the section by highlighting the roles of both culture and agriculture in convivial conservation by analysing how ‘resilience’ is understood in the Galapagos Islands.

The third part turns to the issue of rethinking human-wildlife interactions. Kate Massarella and Valentina Fiasco first analyse ‘coexistence’, asking whether this increasingly popular buzzword presents an opportunity for transformative change or business as usual conservation. Hanna Pettersson, Claire Quinn, George Holmes and Steven Sait then explore how to better understand conducive conditions for human-wolf coexistence in north-western Spain. Svetoslava Toncheva, Rob Fletcher, and Esther Turnhout continue the theme by unpacking human-bear cohabitation in Bulgaria’s Rodopi Mountains. The section is completed by Séverine van Bommel and Susan Boonman-Berson’s call for transforming convivial conservation through more-than-human participation in research.

Part four then focuses on alternative governance and financing mechanisms for the future of conservation, starting with Fletcher and Büscher’s proposal for conservation basic income as a non-market alternative to market-based mechanisms common in mainstream conservation. Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao then explores how conviviality can flourish in disrupted socionatural landscapes through ‘ecological peacebuilding’, using a case study of Akagera National Park in Rwanda. Revati Pandya then unpacks how micro-politics influence prospects for convivial conservation around the Corbett Tiger Reserve in India, and George Iordăchescu explores the potential for convivial conservation in Europe through the possibility of reclaiming the commons. The collection is then rounded off by Wilhelm Kiwango and Mathew Bukhi Mabele making a case for why convivial conservation needs complementing to be a viable alternative for conservation in the Global South.

More

• Listen to the Convivial conservation podcast on Soundcloud
• Visit the Conviva website

1. Updates on the state of nature from around the world in ’30×30‘, Campaign for Nature website, retreived 18 May 2023 ↩︎
2. Leading NGOs warn 30×30 plan will ‘devastate Indigenous lives” in run-up to COP15, Survival International website, retrieved 18 May 023 ↩︎